Entering Friday night's game, the Blue Devils were not only seemingly destined for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, but they were well positioned to earn the top overall seed in the NCAAs. Had they won the ACC tournament, they would have entered the NCAAs with an undefeated record with Kelly in the lineup.

But before you are quick to drop Duke to a No. 2 seed, remember that the tournament selection committee is always careful not to fall into "impulse buying," which means putting too much weight on any one victory or loss.

Another loss to Maryland, a team that has suddenly re-emerged in the conversation for one of the final at-large berths, does little to overshadow or offset what has been an outstanding résumé that Duke has pieced together through the course of the season.

The committee considers a team's entire body of work. And Duke beat six - yes, six - top-50 RPI teams - Kentucky, Minnesota, VCU, Louisville, Ohio State and Temple - all before Dec. 9. It was probably one of the best non-conference résumés assembled by any team in recent years. The Blue Devils lost four of 13 games while Kelly was sidelined, but then ended the regular season with wins over Miami and North Carolina, two more NCAA tournament teams.

Should it win the Big Ten tournament, Indiana is likely the favorite (again) to earn the top overall seed in the NCAA tournament. Louisville is well positioned to earn another No. 1 seed if the Cardinals beat Syracuse in Saturday's Big East championship. Gonzaga remains poised to earn a No. 1 seed despite a strength of schedule ranking that would be among the worst of any top seed since 2000.

Few other teams are poised to make the jump to the top seed line for a variety of reasons.

Georgetown stumbled against Syracuse in the Big East semifinals. Michigan State, which was fortunate to survive an unexpected test from Iowa, did not lose to a team outside the top 50 of the RPI, but it suffered a three-game losing streak during a difficult late-season stretch of games.

And then there are the very good teams with flawed résumés: Miami and Kansas. The Hurricanes rank in the top five in RPI and strength of schedule, but they lost to two sub-100 RPI teams in the last month: Wake Forest and Georgia Tech. And the Jayhawks suffered an embarrassing loss at TCU, which ranks 237th in the RPI, in early February and were beaten by 23 points last Saturday in the regular season finale at Baylor.

So with Selection Sunday drawing ever closer, the picture for the top seeds remains the same at the moment. Despite all the madness involving some of the best teams in the nation - namely Duke and Georgetown losing - the same four top seeds hold as of now, including those Blue Devils, who are no longer invincible with Kelly on the court.